


letters we never sent

by newsbypostcard



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Epistolary, Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:17:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7791982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1944, Steve finds a stack of letters Bucky wrote to him during the war and never sent. In 2014, Bucky finds the same from Steve (and then steals them out of the Smithsonian).</p><p>In 2016, they run out of time again.</p><p>It turns out that neither one of them can quite break the habit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	letters we never sent

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Письма, что мы не отправили](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412278) by [Christoph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christoph/pseuds/Christoph), [fandom_EvanstanStarbucks_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_EvanstanStarbucks_2017/pseuds/fandom_EvanstanStarbucks_2017)



> I'm stumbling badly on my WIP so I started writing some letters in the world to help encourage the writing muscles, but it backfired on me because it became its own thing. Epistolary fic is great for playing with meaning and self-censorship, and I blacked out some phrases that can be highlighted to read on a computer (there is no fix for mobile, I'm sorry!).

  


June 26, 2016

 

I keep having this dream. It's years from now. We're miles away. Your sleeves are rolled up above the elbow and you're wearing a tie but it's loose at your neck, and you look   ~~rugged~~   ~~handsome~~  beautiful. You keep your hair long. I don't know if you really would or not. You tie it back because it helps to have your periphery clear. Your eyes are clear, too, you know... present. You're present.

Tony and Pepper are getting married and we're at their wedding. You never met Pepper. I hope you will. You'd like her, I think. She'd like you a lot. She tells Tony that you're invited and he won't make a scene and that's final, and you go because she invited you. Or because I asked you to. 

I don't know why I'm writing any of this down.

Sometimes I think about what you'd look like if you weren't struggling with   ~~this~~ all of this what you've been through. In the dream, you look rested. You have a new prosthetic arm, something lighter, without slats. I think you hate the slats. I saw you flexing your fist when we were on the quinjet, looking at it. Looking like you hated it. I hope T'Challa finds a solution like that.

If you want it.  
Another thing I never asked you.

I think you like having something like a beard, too, the way you like your hair long. It's nice to look different on the other side. I like it on you. 

Once a minute I think of something else I never said. Maybe that's why I keep writing you stupid letters, after all this time.

I think I'll grow a beard too.

I want you to know I think  we you'll be happy. I don't know if you think you will. I don't know if you will for sure. I just think you will. I see you at this wedding, Bucky, this wedding that'll never happen, and I think you must be happy, or close to it. You hold champagne in the air when it's time to toast and you look at Pepper and you look wistful, because she's happy though you don't know why. And I look at you and you look happy though I don't know why.

~~Sometimes I wonder if we'd been born into this century if we'd ever get married.~~

I hope you never actually get your hands on this.

Do you remember how you always used to tell me "fools rush in" every time I did something stupid? I hate to be a romantic and I know you'd hate me to be one too but there's a famous ballad now that uses that line. Elvis. Maybe you've heard of him. Tony plays the song at the wedding. You don't know him but it's such a typical Tony move that it's actually hilarious. If Elvis wasn't dead I think Tony would've hired him to show up in person. Anyway I look at you and you let me pull you onto the dance floor and you roll your eyes and drag your feet but it's just like it used to be, Bucky, when we used to sway in that kitchen and become something that mattered. 

My chest aches so bad every time I dream this stupid thing, this thing that won't happen. I just   ~~love you so much~~  wish I'd told you how   bad  much I hope you'll   ~~we can~~  I can hold   I get to feel like that again.

I'm gonna get you out of there, Bucky. Hang in there.  For me.  Please.

  


  


* * *

  


  


_(1944)_

"Captain Rogers?"

Steve blinked up from where he'd been staring at the centre of the table. He'd been there, in that same place, at that same bar, for four consecutive nights. He didn't feel like leaving. He didn't feel like doing anything else. He should've started another mission with the Commandos already, but with Bucky gone --

"Yeah," Steve said. Of all the things he hated the most about what the serum had done to his life, the fact that he drank for the burn and not the buzz was an easy second.

The corporal blinked at him. "Found this among Sergeant James Barnes' personal belongings. Looks to have your name on it. Found a document says you're meant to have it."

It was a metal box, with a lock on the front.

Steve stared at it, then flitted his eyes back to the sergeant. "This all he left me?"

"What'd you expect?"

He fiddled with the lock, but it didn't budge. "Is there a key?"

"You don't have it?"

"I've never seen this thing before."

"You telling me it's not yours?" He procured some document from out of his pocket. "That is you, right?"

In Bucky's messy handwriting:

_"In the event of my untimely demise:_

  * _Give Pte. James Morita #19107893 first pick of my weapons. He had an eye on my 99 and I told him over my dead body so if I was shot in my sleep consider a court martial instead_
  * _There's a stack of letters and cards tied together with twine in my sack. I got bad at writing back but make sure they all know I got 'em_
  * _There's a lockbox that belongs to Cpt. Steven Rogers #12947821. I've been hiding from him as a prank, make sure he gets it_
  * _Send everything else back to next of kin address on file."_



Steve felt his heart pounding as he read the note over and over, again and again.

"You there, pal?"

Steve blinked up at him. "Yeah. Uh, that's me all right."

"So this is yours?"

"Guess so."

"Because if it's not--"

"I forgot about it. That's all." Steve tried for a shaky smile. "If you don't need this paper back I'd like to keep it if you don't mind."

The corporal gave him a sidelong look, but then shrugged and gave a lazy salute. Steve didn't care in the slightest. He hadn't even cared enough to ask him for his name.

  


  


  


Steve found the key in the pocket of his very first Captain America uniform, before he'd had it refit.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Nov 1 1940

Steve,

God, I miss you.

I don't know I have much to say besides that.

This is all wrong. I don't want to be here. Basic's okay so far.

I wish you were here.  I wish I was home.  With you.

I'm not gonna send this. Guess it's something just to write it down.

  


* * *

  


Nov 8 1940

Steve,

Wrote you a letter a week ago but well I guess I got distracted because it isn't much of anything so I thought I'd start again and send you a proper one.

Things are It's all right here.  I don't know how to  ~~I wish you were~~   I wish I was

Jesus fucking Christ. I'm never gonna get through basic without getting myself kicked out of the damn army one way or another. I wish I could do better for you. I want to do this for you, now, you know. That's the mangled mindset I find myself in. You want to be here, so I better do my best to live up to you. I think that's unfair to you and you'd say it's unfair to me. I just want you to know that there's no hard feelings here. I don't fault you for a damn thing. I never did. I'm sorry I got ornery and shouted when the conscription notice came. It's not your fault.   ~~I hope you know the way I~~   Don't blame yourself, whatever happens.

Of course you will anyway, so there's no point incriminating myself by sending this along now is there.

I'll send you something proper soon. I'm sorry. You don't know how sorry I am.

  


* * *

  


Dec 12 1940

Rogers,

I was thinking yesterday of when your Ma died and I caught you selling off some of her things to pay for a present for me. You had tears streaming down your dumb face the whole damn time and when I tried to drag you home again you actually had the audacity to throw a punch at me. "I can't get you what you deserve" you said and pinwheeled your fists around for a while before letting me take you home and feed you something because you'd been living off potatoes for weeks and had never bothered to tell me.

I don't know what made me think of that. Time of year, I guess.

I'm sorry I won't be there. It won't be the same. You should spend it with my folks, or maybe you found someone else to spend it with.   ~~I hope that you didn't.~~ ~~I hope that you did.~~   Anyway happy new year or whatever. Turn the damn heat on if you got enough to eat.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Mar 11 1941

Rogers,

Well I guess I'm 24 years old. Got buzzed with my unit and found myself talking about you an awful lot. Now I guess they won't look at me for some reason so I'm real concerned about what I said. I shouldn't have done it but it's the first time in 17 years you weren't there and well I guess I wasn't much in the mood for it anyhow. Remember when you turned 18 and I got you so drunk you upchucked all over the street on your way home? God I never saw so much pour out of one person before and you're such a scrawny kid I didn't know you could carry that much in the first place. Anyway I was thinking about that and seeing if I could beat it somehow because ~~I guess I wanted~~  I don't really know why but the problem is that I don't like the hard stuff they have around here because it tastes like fuel so all I had to drink was the watery so-called beer they have around and it was enough to get me talking and give me a mighty headache today but not enough to get me drunk proper. So all I did was talk about you because I was thinking about you already I guess.

You haven't written in a while and neither have I or at least not a letter I actually sent so I guess I'm missing you more than usual, though I can't say I notice any difference.  ~~It hurts same as always.~~  I wish I could

You should know that when I say scrawny I don't mean it as a bad thing. You gotta know I liked it you that way.

Anyway. Another one I won't send I guess. Sometimes I wonder if you do the same thing  or if you found someone else already  but probably not. I hope you're doing good, Steve. That's all I really want.

Marshall just looked me in the eye and invited me to the mess and said something about the fact that I got caught pranking the sergeant here which I remembered but wasn't worried about so I guess I didn't say anything too off-putting after all.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Aug 3 1941

I wrote to you to say I'm coming home a couple weeks ago and you never replied until today. Way to make a guy nervous-!  You never said a thing in here about anyone else but I think I can read it anyway.  Your letter's too short and I've never known you to be tight-lipped in your life. That's the main beef I got with you, Rogers, is you never shut your damn mouth. Now you've gone and wised up and it turns out I hate that more.

I  want  miss you  so bad.  I've already made up my mind that I'm gonna stay with Ma because I don't want you to think that   we  I can just come back and take up my old space like I never left. I don't expect that of you. And I don't think it's a good idea, either, for what it's worth. To  carry on  try to pick up where we left off. But not thinking it's a good idea doesn't change what I really want.   ~~I want to fuck into that pretty little~~   I don't want you to think I only I just want to see you. 

Anyhow I guess we'll see what happens and all but if this is the way it is then that's okay, Rogers. It's all okay. Regardless we're all right no matter what. I hope you know that.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Aug 19 1941

Well I'm back at camp now and all I wanna do is write to you about all the things we just did like you don't already know. That was a real good visit Rogers and I'm sorry I was the way I was. I guess I don't feel any different from how I left near a year ago now and that took me by surprise is all. I don't feel like the same fella most days but I do when I'm with you, only I'm not anymore, you know? I can tell you do. I could hear the resentment in your voice every time you called me corporal, only I should tell you it's the only time that title's ever made sense to me, when you say it like that. The way you  ~~grasped~~   took hold   treated the uniform. Well I guess I felt like me.   ~~With your mouth around~~ I felt real for the first time in It made sense, that's all I'm saying. 

Well maybe I don't actually know what I'm trying to say. Just that I'm sorry I doubted you. And thanks. I guess. For treating me like always.

Sorry I left again too. Wish I coulda said that to your face or even write it in a letter but I can tell before I even start which ones I'm not gonna send these days. You should know I didn't want to go. I hate leaving. You and your big mouth.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Dec 17 1941

Steve,

I'm up for sergeant. Guess I have a knack for sniping but that's not all. I can hear your voice now: wow, Bucky, skulking in the shadows, how unlike you. Yeah, well, fuck you, pal. They want me to lead a unit. I'm a leader now. I'm

I never talk to you about this stuff so I don't know why I'm starting now.

I guess I'll be home in a few days and ~~I'm scared if I leave this place I'll never come back~~   I'll see you before this gets to you so I don't know why I'm writing. Except I guess I do because I'll never be able to tell you to your face how scared ~~I don't want~~ I don't know how  things are. I've been lucky so far and I guess I'll live to see 25. That's not so bad for a fella who lived through the Depression. Though you're the real miracle in that respect I suppose.

Made a lot of plans for when I'm home and I don't know how much I'll see you but I think it's for the best. Like if I show up and  you make me feel the way I  remember what it's like to be home I won't want to  will have a real hard time coming back here for sergeant's training even though I know I gotta. You would. But you were always more courageous.

I just want you to know  how I  ~~that I~~ it's not personal, Steve. God knows I wish I could stay  with you you don't know how much. But you were always about the bigger picture. I'm trying to be that way now.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Apr 4 1942

I haven't told you I've got my shipping orders and I don't plan to until the night before because if you ask me to stay I really might. I don't think you will but I don't want to spend the time waiting for you to say it anyway because wanting you to say it might kill me before I even go. You say you understand what I gotta do but I know you don't really want me to go and you know I don't either and if we give each other the time and opportunity I think one of us might really talk me into staying.

 ~~I don't want to leave you.~~ ~~I don't want you to be alone.~~

I'm trying to think how I could even start to say good-by but if I don't manage it I hope you figure out how to forgive me someday.  ~~I lo~~  Well I hope you know what I'd say. You gotta know what I'd say by now.

  


  


* * *

  


  


_(2014)_

If there's one thing he knows for sure, it's that history is curated. The Smithsonian exhibit is proof of concept. It's sterile, jingoistic. This Captain America is portrayed as a force of nation rather than nature. It doesn't accord with what's in his head, so one of them must be wrong. There's only one way to find out which.

The beautiful thing about museums, even the big ones, is that security is predictable. He gets through it in twenty minutes once it's closed for the night. The things that aren't displayed are much more informative than what's actually in the exhibit, to his utter lack of shock. Documents from the Second World War; endless speculation on the movements and maneuvers of the Howling Commandos. He takes a mental inventory of which ones seem credible and which can be debunked. _No. No. No. Yes. Technically I guess._ As though he was there.

He looks to the ceiling, wondering if he really was. He can't get bogged down in specifics until the mission is complete.

It's an easy enough directive to follow until, moments before leaving, he stumbles on a pile of nondescript accordion files. "Letters," they say only, four of them stacked dusty in a corner. He grabs the first, unwinds the twine -- finds letters from Steve Rogers to Peggy Carter, dated 1943 to 1944.

His vision narrows; his focus falls. He finds himself taking the letters out and leafing quickly through them. If he had to guess, he'd say they were never sent -- expressing doubt, about both mission and personal affairs, that a military body would never allow. Mentions of a previous affair he couldn't quite shake -- no details provided. Concerns about the future of the mission, the future of the war. Doubt. 

He rips open the next folder to find letters from Peggy Carter to Steve Rogers replying to the ones he did wind up sending. She'd implored him to take the time he needs. He has a huge weight on his shoulders, she'd said. These things shouldn't be rushed; she understands. Impatience, once or twice, with how nonspecific his letters were -- but otherwise replete with steadfast support.

The third is full of unsigned letters, to Steve Rogers, partially redacted.

The tension leaves his body all at once.

He has memories of this.

His blood rushes sudden in his ears. He looks over his shoulder to make sure he hasn't been discovered, not trusting his senses to warn him anymore. He leafs through the letters, again quickly. They are neatly organized in chronological order, 1940 at the top, 1942 at the bottom. They're all in handwriting he recognizes, describing events that spark familiar in his mind.

Feeling floods him, as though he'd felt everything described once before. As though he's feeling it again now.

He shoves the letters back in the folder and tosses it toward the door. He'd meant to be a ghost, in and out, but he has an unquenchable belief that he's entitled to those files anyway. He grabs the fourth folder with an undeserved force, speed and confidence the only defense against the pump of his blood through his system, and he finds what he expected -- handwriting matching what he saw in Rogers' letters to Carter. 

The letters show signs of once having been neatly folded, now lain flat and categorized by chronology in an accordion file folder. Post-it notes are appended to each one: _Suggests homosexual affair,_ says one; then, below it, another in different handwriting: _Speculation could be catastrophic, even if we could get away with it._

One name repeats itself in the letters: Bucky. 

_Bucky -- you've known me your whole life._

His eyes fly to the folder he's thrown to the door. He steps swiftly forward; pulls it open again. No post-its to speak of, he thinks, until he finds two, neatly folded and forgotten, stacked on top of one another and sitting in the bottom of the folder.

 _86'd by director,_ says the first, then beneath it -- _Corroborates theory of homosexuality_.

He thinks back to what the exhibit had said.

_Inseparable._

After a bracing second of thought, he shoves all four folders into his knapsack and swings out of the archives before allowing himself a second of doubt. Doubt is for after the mission.

He is afforded that luxury now -- of _after_. Of doubt.

Sometimes it's the little things that count the most.

  


  


* * *

  


  


June 4, 1943

It's funny. We used to get time to write letters all the time in basic, but I never had anyone to write to, so I just drew and pretended like I was writing to you.

It's not that I didn't think about writing to you. I did. I must've drafted a thousand letters to you in my head. But I stopped hearing from you after you shipped out, and it's not like we had an easy time of it finding things to say before that.

You're sitting right beside me but I'm writing to you now. I don't know what else to do.

I think you must be scared of me.

Either that or you're just scared. You said something and I guess I deserved it but no, Bucky, I haven't grown a second skin. I'm not red underneath like whatever hell creature Schmidt's become. I'm not like that. And I can see why you think I am. I can see why you look at me and think I'm Frankenstein's monster. But you oughtta know that I became this way to help you, to bring you back from this war safe. And didn't I? Could Frankenstein's monster do that?

You're sitting at this desk with a hand clenched white in your hair and you know what maybe I'm a little scared of you too. I've never seen you like this. I've never seen you this pale or this supplicant. Your teeth grind so hard I can hear them from here. Though maybe that's some superpower I have. I don't know.

You take your hand away when you touch me now.

I guess I should give you some time to adjust.

Anyway it's been some weeks now and you're not getting better and you're not talking to me, not even to ask questions. And I guess I don't want to tell you anything you don't want to know. And I guess I don't want to ask anything you don't want to tell me either. But you should know that I'm sitting here writing you a letter while everyone else is writing their families, and maybe that means something.

You're sitting here beside me and we don't recognize each other but you're still the only person I feel like writing to.

Anyway I might give this to you or maybe I never will. But at least now if you find this accidentally we can have a proper conversation instead of whatever the hell we're pretending to do now. I don't know what I'm hoping for except that  you come back to me  things get better somehow. I hope we figure out a way to get there.

  


  


* * *

  


  


October 6, 1943

Bucky,

I miss you.

Here you are right beside me again.

Maybe things are getting better after all. You seem more relaxed when we're on a mission. Maybe relaxed isn't the right word. Maybe I just recognize you more. Remember when you'd be solving a math problem and you'd start smiling as you understood it and it made me so mad because you were such a fucking genius? You look like that, only maybe it was never a smile I saw. I don't know. You have a mind for strategizing. I see you hating that you have a mind for strategizing every single day, but at the same time that it makes you feel like you're worth something. I never thought I'd see the day when you weren't the arrogant prick who used to saunter through Brooklyn, but you're not. I miss him. I guess I never thought I'd see that day either.

You seem to be getting used to me. You don't avoid me as much. You stand up straighter. Your eye finds mine on the first try now. I wish we I'm starting to think there must have been something missing from our relationship in the later years. We used to know how to get the other to talk without ever touching but it seems we've lost that knack now and we still don't touch much so we're at an impasse.

I'm worried about you. It seems like you're never here. You make jokes and they echo like it wasn't you who said them.

I miss you so goddamn much. I don't know what to do to help you. Please tell me. I can't ask you enough times. You shouldn't have to suffer like this ~~alone~~.

  


  


* * *

  


  


April 22, 1944

It's been days without rest and now we're finally here and I'm so tired but I can't stop thinking of you. I wish you knew, Bucky. I wish I felt like I could tell you what you mean to me. We were tired and it was a slip but you linked your arm around my neck and kissed my head today like it was 1939 and Bucky, Bucky, I thought the world might end right there. I know what liberation means. I know what it means to feel it and I know you felt it then, and I think you wanted to -- be free in every respect, just for a moment. But when you did that and then moved away from me without even looking at me and went to celebrate with the others like it was nothing and left me ~~aching~~   Jesus Bucky  ~~I don't know if I can~~ god I just want you I wish for something different I guess. I wish we could just   undress and  lie down together and  tell   ~~say~~ explore  talk a bit.  I just want your hands on me is all. I want you to touch me so bad.

I know you're not the same and I know I'm not either but I still feel the way I always have and I wish you knew that. I wish I knew how to tell you without making it into something we can't come back from. In Brooklyn it was one thing but out here the mission comes first, I know that. You know that. We have to win the war. But then maybe, after that  I can   ~~we can~~ there will be time enough for something to say.

I can see the shine of your eyes right now and I know you're not sleeping either but you never sleep much these days so I ~~wish~~ hope  well maybe I'm grasping at straws. I wonder what you'd say if I asked you to take a walk with me.  I'd fall to my knees and make you forget about all this if you'd just let me. But for all my so-called courage I guess I'll never find out.

  


  


* * *

  


  


December 1, 1944

Hi Bucky.

I just read your letters.

I can see now you never meant to come back from the war. It's less that you were scared of the unknown and more that you understood what war was. Probably one of your mathematical calculations. Where X = death, if X then you would never come back to me, but if not-X then Y, where Y = war. Y is a given and you still would never have come back to me because war changes a man. I could never have saved you. 

I guess I still don't know a thing about math. 

I can't sleep and I can't get drunk and Schmidt is still out there but this feels impossible without you.

I can't believe you kept these for two or three years.

Do you remember the year after my mom died and we spent the last days of the year socked in by some freak snowstorm? You'd gone out of your way to buy me some incredible paints without realizing that I only ever worked in pencil because I couldn't see half the colours. I've never seen you more mortified in your life. You looked like you hated yourself so much for being so dense and I never thought I'd see you less confident in yourself again. I had to kiss your burning face until you pushed me away and then I asked you to label the colors for me, sky and leaf and lilac, and I painted with them according to how they were labeled. And you just pulled me into your chest when I showed you because you figured out that the way the world was, covered in snow and monochromatic, is the way I always saw things but I managed to make something like that out of it anyway, just because you showed me what the meaning was.

I don't know what made me think of that. I see color fine now but ~~without you it's like~~  it's that time of year I guess.

I never found it in me to say good-by to you either. But to answer your question, I know what you would have said. I do know that for sure now. So maybe you'd known what I'd have said, too.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

I'll do what it takes to bring him down.

  


  


* * *

  


  


_(2016)_

Steve finds it by accident: shoved in the back of some accordion file in Bucky's knapsack, full -- inexplicably -- of Steve's unsent letters from the war.

A Smithsonian seal is stamped across the back of every page.

He burns with mortification to realize they'd found them. Clenching his jaw against panic, he retains enough of a shred of reason to realize the truth of their relationship had never made its way into the outside world. Unless the Smithsonian made copies -- or someone else did -- the only proof was here, apparently stolen out of their back vault by Bucky some time ago. There was no proof to support anything had ever transpired between them.

Not that it matters much anymore, these days.

The sealed envelope is shoved in the very last pocket of the folder. It reads:

_For Steve,  
    if I have to stay under._

Steve sits down hard, his fingers clenched tight against it.

He weighs his options. It has been months. Siberia was picked clean by the time he got there. The Raft went off the grid again in the wake of the jailbreak. T'Challa's considerable resources were turning up no additional leads. Sam's growing frustrated with him and probably, if he's honest with himself, won't stick around for too much longer without a thread to follow.

But Steve's not done yet.

This letter is for the day he finally gives up.

Steve stares at it and breathes, trying to figure out where ethics and personal interest collide. He tries to imagine what the letter might say. _Steve,_ he considers, _it's not your fault._

_Steve -- you did the best you could._

_It's OK. Honest._

_You were never meant to save me._

He tosses the envelope across the table away from himself and covers his face with his hands. That's the generous version. Maybe there's some information in here that Steve would never want to know. A confession letter, some deal Bucky made. He tries to convince himself of it to make himself _not_ want to read it -- to hold out until the day, should it ever transpire, when he really does give up.

"That day will never come," he tells the envelope knowingly.

The fact that the letter exists tells him that Bucky thinks it will.

Steve agonizes for days. Eventually, after Sam shouts him down over breakfast for never opening his damn mouth, Steve fishes the envelope from where he's stored it in his civilian coat and throws it at Sam. 

"I'm clearly not supposed to read it unless he's not coming back," he says shortly.

Sam looks down at the envelope, then up at Steve. "Where'd you find this?"

"With his belongings."

"I figured that much, smartass. Were you snooping where you weren't supposed to be?"

Steve shrugs. "Back of an accordion file, with stuff I haven't looked at. I guess he didn't expect me to have time to go through that stuff unless I'd given up the chase."

"What do you think it'll say?"

"I don't know," he lies.

Sam stares at him. Steve stares back. 

"You want my two cents?" Sam asks.

"Sure," Steve sighs, kicking his feet back. "Can't hurt at this point."

"I think he never meant for you to wait to open it."

"It says--"

"I know what it says. It says, _For Steve._ You're entitled to it. I think he'd bet that if you found it -- and he didn't exactly go to great lengths to hide it from you -- that you'd agonize over it only for long enough that it took you to justify your decision to read it."

"I dunno about that, Sam."

"No? Your boyfriend goes popsicle for an undetermined amount of time and he just expects you to _hold on_ to his last words _in case you decide you need them_?"

Steve stares at the ceiling and tries to measure his breathing. "Maybe I've been writing him letters too," he mutters eventually, "but that doesn't mean I want him to read them."

"But this one's addressed to you." Sam shrugs and renews his interest in his breakfast. "I dunno, man. Your call. But I say go for it."

Steve nods and sighs and turns the envelope over in his fingers, again and again and again.

It takes him another three hours before he caves.

  


  


* * *

  


  


June 8, 2016

Rogers,

I broke your slingshot in 1926 and said it was Tom Grissom because you kept picking fights with bullies instead of defending yourself like you were supposed to and I regret nothing about it.

You're an idiot.

Never change.

See you when you figure it out.

-B

  


  


* * *

  


  


When Bucky steps out of the cryopod, Steve's waiting for him with crossed arms. 

"You owe me twenty cents," he says flatly.

It's a confused second before the smile breaks on Bucky's face. "You made that contraption yourself," he replies, staggering and hoarse.

"And the materials cost twenty cents," says Steve. He takes Bucky into his arms and loves him, he loves him, he wants never to let go. "Plus inflation. What's that, like a hundred bucks?"

"Jesus, no. Try like $2.50."

"Whatever. You broke my slingshot, you owe me."

"Fine," says Bucky, and bunches his hand against Steve's back. "So I owe you. What else you got?"

Steve tangles a hand fond in his hair. "I've got a black book with a star on it, schematic options for a prosthetic arm, and a bunch of accordion files you stole from the Smithsonian. Where do you want to start?"

Bucky's whole body relaxes, the breath seeping out of him. "How about right here?" he mutters, pressing his forehead against Steve's.

"Here is good," Steve replies, and kisses him deep.

  



End file.
